Two weeks had passed since Jess and I discussed moving in together. We’d ironed out the details and decided to tell everyone of our plan. Seated at my usual spot on my parents’ loveseat with Jess at my side, I clapped my hands together. “I’ve got an announcement to make.”

My father lowered his Kindle and peered over the top of it. “Jess is pregnant.”

Although everyone would undoubtedly be able to determine the date of conception after the baby was born, we had decided not to announce the pregnancy until later. Jessica’s parents were extremely religious. They’d prefer we were married before we had children but could accept us living together. To them, us announcing our pregnancy prior to living together would equate to sinning, squared. Or, to the tenth power of sinning. Sinning would certainly be the crux of the problem.

Jess looked at me, and I at her. I met my father’s gaze. “No. It’s something else.”

“You’re getting hitched?”

My mother raised her head. “Who’s getting hitched?”

“Nobody, mother!”

She scrunched her face. “I thought your dad said someone was getting hitched?”

“We’re moving in together!” I shouted.

“Oh, Good!” My mother exclaimed. “That’s so exciting. Where are you going to live?”

“In the loft.”

She covered her mouth with her hands. “You don’t have a yard. That’s not good for the kids.”

The thought of moving out didn’t set well with me. Although I’d been out of prison five years, the ATF’s methods of invading my private life still occupied my thoughts on a daily basis.

“We’ll find some place with a yard one of these days.”

“Don’t wait too long,” my mother said. “They won’t be kids forever.”

“I’ll try to remember that, mother.”

“Congratulations,” my father said. “When are you going to ditch the life of sin and get married?”

“I’m sure that’ll happen one of these days,” I said. “As long as she doesn’t fuck up.”

“Scott David Hildreth,” my mother whined. “That’s enough of that talk.”

I looked at my father and raised my brows. “I’m with you. I think it’s selective memory loss,” I said, although I meant selective hearing loss.

“What?” my mother asked in an elevated tone.

“I said Jess is secretly a macramé boss!”

“Macramé makes such great pretty wall hangings,” she said.

I did a mental eye roll and shifted my gaze to my father. “That’s the week’s news.”

“How’s the writing?”

“Good. Writing another boxer book.”

“How many you doing in that series?”

“As many as it takes,” I responded. “Four is my guess. I hope everything keeps going as good as it is right now. That last one sold like gangbusters.”

“Ripton’s book?”

I nodded as I pulled my phone from my pocket. After bringing up my Amazon sales page for the previous month, I handed my father the phone. “Have a look at that.”

He studied the phone for a moment and then looked at me. “What’s this include?”

“The first thirty days of income from that book.”

“Jesus jumped up Christ!” he shouted. “Seriously?”

I gave a prideful nod. “Yep.”

“Good Lord,” he said, handing me the phone.

“What?” Jess asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “Ripton’s book sold pretty good, that’s all.”

“Oh.”

“Get a place where those kids can enjoy themselves,” my father said. “That’s paramount to their successes.”

“I will, Pop.”

“I planned on raising you little heathens out in California, but I think you had a pretty good life here,” he said.

My longing to live in Southern California had never faded, and I doubted it ever would. I simply hadn’t acted upon my desire to move there. I wondered if I ever would. Expressing my disappointments in the Midwest would crush my father, so I never told him how I truly felt.

“My childhood was as good any kid could have hoped for,” I said.

Jess excused herself and went to the bathroom. While she was gone, my father and I discussed book ideas. When she returned, she looked ill.

“You okay, sweetheart?” my father asked.

“I think I’m sick,” she said.

“What can I get you?” he asked.

Her eyes met mine.

Something was wrong.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“I’m sick. I think we need to go.”

“Bad?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve got really bad cramps.”

“Probably need to poop,” my father said. “Never could do that at a stranger’s house. Something about the comfort of a man’s own home that allows him to have a proper release.”

“Do you want to go?”

She nodded.

We bid our farewells and left. The entire drive home, Jess was convinced my father was right. She said she felt that she simply needed to go to the bathroom but couldn’t seem to do it.

She dropped me off at the corner with a kiss, and then went home. As I rode the elevator up to my floor, I prayed that everything was alright with our baby.

I quickly became immersed in my work, attempting to finish the third book in the boxer series. I included elements of my personal life. What Jess and I had experienced. In the end, I added a little surprise for the readers.

My phone rang. I picked it up and looked at the screen. Two hours had somehow passed since Jess dropped me off.

I picked up the phone and answered it.

“I feel like crap,” Jess said.

“Get some sleep. You’re pregnant. We’ve been running around like idiots. Go, go, go. That’s all we do. Take some time off. I’m sure you’re just exhausted.”

“You’re probably right.”

“Get some sleep, Baby. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

The next three days passed, with Jess feeling sick most of the time. At six weeks into her pregnancy, we wrote it off as an aggravated form of morning sickness. On the night of the fourth day, my phone rang again.

Jess was sobbing.

“What’s wrong, Baby?”

Her crying was the only sound I could hear.

“What? Did it get more painful?”

The crying continued. After a moment, she sucked a few choppy breaths.

“Our…baby,” she sobbed.

I leaped from my stool. “What? What’s wrong? Is everything okay?”

“I uhhm. I had…I had…I’m so sorry, Scott.”

“Baby? What’s wrong? Is everything okay?”

“I don’t know…I don’t know what I did wrong,” she said, her voice distant. “I’m so sorry.”

“I’m sure we can fix it. What happened?”

“I had a miscarriage,” she blubbered. “Our baby. I’m in the bathroom. It’s uhhm…it’s…I don’t know what to do…”